A quote from Ama to Chrissy:
"The people who worked to build the cathedrals in the Middle Ages never saw them completed. It took two hundred years & more to build them. Some stonecutter somewhere sculpted a beautiful rose, it was his life's work, and it was all he ever saw. But he never entered into a completed cathedral. But one day, the cathedral was really there.
"You must imagine peace the same way."
-Dorothee Solle
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
FMPR PRESIDENT Rafael Feliciano In Solidarity with Anti-Co-Location in the Bronx
FMPR President Rafael Feliciano stands in solidarity with Bronx Regional High School and Satellite Academy High School organizing against an unjust charter school co-location proposal by the DOE.
He is also the founding member of the Movimiento Socialista de
Trabajadores - MST de Puerto Rico, and a High
School Physics Teacher.
In his visit to New York City this March, he held a panel presentation at the Left Forum on the Privatization of Public Education and Resistance.
He also came to Satellite's Press Conference on Monday, March 19, 2012 about pending investigations into the DOE's seeming mis-calculation of space in the Bronx Regional Building.
He stands here in solidarity with all stakeholders who oppose the DOE's proposal to co-locate a new charter school in the Bronx Regional Building.
Muchissimas Gracias, Rafael.
In lucha,
Save Satellite
Monday, March 19, 2012
ROADS 2 INVADES Part 2 -- Kelson Maynard
Video by Angel Gonzalez
Public Hearing March 12
Statement made by
Kelson Maynard:
I have been in this school
Satellite Academy for 28 years.
I don’t understand. I
don’t understand how the educational theory is going to improve the quality of
education. I have not encountered an explanation, and yet that is the principle
in which this decision is being made.
Currently, I share a classroom because
there isn’t enough space. We are being told by people who have not been to the
school that we have too much space. Something is wrong with that logic.
I want to know, Why is it that we in this community here have to confront this kind of problem, that Bronx Science, Stuyvesant, etc would not have to
confront. Is this class warfare? Why are we being dumped on?
Many of us have
died for something called democracy.
We are looking to see if those
lives are
in vain.
Because hear me out!
Expressing ourselves and the decisions are supposed to be democratic decision-making.
Let's see if that were to be obtained here after this meeting this afternoon or if it is a cynical process and this proposal has already been confirmed.
Since I have been here,
there have been two schools that are constant: Satellite Academy and Bronx Regional. Now a plan is being concocted to do
irreparable damage to these two programs. Why is that? Why is the DOE doing
this plan with such a deleterious effect as you have already heard?
I am pretty confident that the
education that the well-to-do get, the education that students get in some parts of
Westchester and other places are as different, the special arrangement is different and students have a different
experience, but we are supposed to be crowded like cockroaches and we are
supposed to get an education to compete with those same students who come out of
schools from the Upper West Side from Westchester with superior facilities superior resources.
Because of what students demonstrated
tonight: they dropped out because the school system that they were apart of did
not work. And now that we have something that works, DOE and SUNY say we must
change that. Many of our students graduated from SUNY!
We have a safe building,
we do not have metal detectors. The program that will come in by default will…
How are we supposed to be and feel comfortable with this apparatus? Something
has to stop. We will see if what our voices have to say are heard, if this is
the home of brave land of the free or not.
Something has to be done.
The
nonsense has to stop.
You must give our children a
chance to be successful.
Satellite Demands Investigation Before PEP
Demands
1. Postpone
the PEP Hearing & Vote until the following investigations can be made:
2.
Investigate and clearly explain to the
community the change in Building Organizational Capacity.
a.
Is
there a connection with the change in Building Organizational Capacity and the
submission of the original ROADS application?
3. Investigate the Errors in the Annual Facilities
Survey to clearly
explain to the community how many full size classrooms exist on the floor.
a.
If
errors are substantiated, then explain to the community how co-location will
work equitably,
especially because the proposal assumes that there will 9.5 classrooms for the
new school.
4. Explain to the community how co-location would work equitably with
the existing school structure, especially regarding
division of space for a high needs student population.
Satellite Fights DOE Move to Increase Floor Capacity
This story is about how the DOE allegedly increased the building capacity (number of seats) from 295 seats to 432 seats in one year (with no new construction or change of rooms).
The DOE responded by saying that the Bronx Regional Building is at 67% capacity--BUT we are calling for an INVESTIGATION of this capacity rate.
Here's why:
- In 2009 the 5th floor capacity was 295 seats.
- In 2010 the 5th floor capacity was changed by the DOE to 432 seats.
- This is a 46% increase in capacity.
What accounts for this change?
Interestingly, ROADS II charter school application was presented to SUNY around the same time in 2010. The ROADS school application was initially sent by Cami Anderson, who worked in the SAME BRONX REGIONAL BUILDING (the proposal was sent back to the drawing board 2 times because of Conflict of Interest).
Further, the DOE co-location proposal requires that the 5th floor give the new charter school 46% of the 5th floor.....exactly the same amount of increase that occurred in 2010 when ROADS II application was filed.
You do the math.
(03/19/12) THE BRONX - The
Schomburg Satellite School is fighting a Department of Education (DOE)
plan to put a second school in the building floor it already occupies.
The DOE wants to put the second school on the fourth and fifth floors, adding 250 students to the building.
Schomburg officials say that the plan would put the floors at 121-percent capacity and the DOE isn't planning of adding additional classrooms or teachers.
The DOE is expected to vote on the issue Wednesday.
The DOE wants to put the second school on the fourth and fifth floors, adding 250 students to the building.
Schomburg officials say that the plan would put the floors at 121-percent capacity and the DOE isn't planning of adding additional classrooms or teachers.
The DOE is expected to vote on the issue Wednesday.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
SATELLITE PRESS CONFERENCE TOMORROW!
DOE DRASTICALLY INCREASES BUILDING
CAPACITY TO MAKE ROOM FOR INCOMING CHARTER SCHOOL?
When: 3:30 p.m. on March 19
Who: Teachers
and Students of Schomburg Satellite Academy
What: Press Conference
to announce their recent findings that the Department of Education
drastically increased the building’s student capacity.
These figures, which
increased by 47.5% in a single year, will allow “room” for the DOE
to add a new charter school to the building, despite strong opposition
by parents, students, and teachers.
ROADS 2 Charter Invading Satellite Academy: Public Hearing
ROADS 2 Charter Invading Satellite Academy: Public Hearing
ROADS II CHARTER SCHOOL
CO-LOCATION PUSHES INTO THE BRONX.
WILL DISRUPT SATELLITE
ACADEMY HIGH SCHOOL
YET NO COMMUNITY INPUT!
Another Charter School CO-LOCATION looms for the South Bronx and immediately threatens the very existence of our good innovative public high school, Satellite Academy (SA).
As usual, the callous Bloomberg's Department of Education (DOE), without any input of our parents, students, staff and Bronx communities, moves impose the ROADS II Charter School into the Bronx Regional High School Building complex where the three schools already exist (i.e. Bronx Regional, GED Plus, and Satellite Academy).
Without community input, the DOE arrogantly claims that ROADS II Charter School will have no educational impact. This is an insult our community's intelligence! The placement of hundreds more high needs students will have negative consequences on all the schools housed in the Bronx Regional High School complex. This is simple math.
All three high schools already serve a high needs Latino & Black student population from our least mobilized neighborhoods. All students in the Bronx Regional Building are transfer students -- over-age, under-credited and many formerly drop-outs. ROADS II aims to serve the same population that SA already serves while at the same time would take away 47% of SA's classroom space!
There is no need for the offerings of the ROADS II charter school. Satellite Academy already exists with a proven track record and offers a far more superior program with an experienced staff that has successfully served transfer students. SA implements a reputable collaborative project/ portfolio learning process that engages students, and has a State-approved Waiver to support its non-Regents-tests-based approach.
ROADS II CHARTER, with the private backing of an outside Wall St. profit driven firm, Centerbridge Partners, comes from outside the Bronx community and promises an questionable computer-based method (promising 15 students per class, ROADS II will instead host 25 students per class where teachers work with small groups while the rest will be placated on computers) and teach-to-test curriculum with a focus on Regents exams. ROADS thus will provide more of the same old methods that contributed to the alienation and pushing out of "transfer" students in the first place. Test-driven teaching negatively impacts on learning.
By adding more students into the Bronx Regional building and segregating these needier students into ROADS II, what results is overcrowding and heightened tensions between four, instead of three schools that all already service very high need students. Instead of using available spaces to promote smaller class sizes, this crowding can result in a negative climate that will beg for demeaning metal detectors, surveillance cameras and the police interventions. The co-location of the ROADS II Charter School is an invitation for unwarranted competition, disharmony and disruption.
The Bronx Regional campus is extra-ordinary in that it is one of the few Bronx high school buildings that to date has no such prison-like scanning, stop & frisk protocols. Instead has a generally more student friendly and welcoming atmosphere. In fact, it holds no scanning as a building-wide policy!
SA classrooms are welcoming with rich learning and decorated environments (a family school atmosphere rarely seen at the high school level). Make an unannounced visit to SA and a respectful low-volume demeanor of the staff will blow you away. The ROADS II co-location would force the doubling-up of teachers and the dismantling of such a wonderful model school that all students deserve.
If more students must be placed here, the public believes that Satellite Academy should be expanded and this fourth unnecessary competing school, the private ROADS II CHARTER, should not be accepted. Its impact can only be negative for all programs at the site.
betterbronxschools@gmail.com
Another Charter School CO-LOCATION looms for the South Bronx and immediately threatens the very existence of our good innovative public high school, Satellite Academy (SA).
As usual, the callous Bloomberg's Department of Education (DOE), without any input of our parents, students, staff and Bronx communities, moves impose the ROADS II Charter School into the Bronx Regional High School Building complex where the three schools already exist (i.e. Bronx Regional, GED Plus, and Satellite Academy).
Without community input, the DOE arrogantly claims that ROADS II Charter School will have no educational impact. This is an insult our community's intelligence! The placement of hundreds more high needs students will have negative consequences on all the schools housed in the Bronx Regional High School complex. This is simple math.
All three high schools already serve a high needs Latino & Black student population from our least mobilized neighborhoods. All students in the Bronx Regional Building are transfer students -- over-age, under-credited and many formerly drop-outs. ROADS II aims to serve the same population that SA already serves while at the same time would take away 47% of SA's classroom space!
There is no need for the offerings of the ROADS II charter school. Satellite Academy already exists with a proven track record and offers a far more superior program with an experienced staff that has successfully served transfer students. SA implements a reputable collaborative project/ portfolio learning process that engages students, and has a State-approved Waiver to support its non-Regents-tests-based approach.
ROADS II CHARTER, with the private backing of an outside Wall St. profit driven firm, Centerbridge Partners, comes from outside the Bronx community and promises an questionable computer-based method (promising 15 students per class, ROADS II will instead host 25 students per class where teachers work with small groups while the rest will be placated on computers) and teach-to-test curriculum with a focus on Regents exams. ROADS thus will provide more of the same old methods that contributed to the alienation and pushing out of "transfer" students in the first place. Test-driven teaching negatively impacts on learning.
By adding more students into the Bronx Regional building and segregating these needier students into ROADS II, what results is overcrowding and heightened tensions between four, instead of three schools that all already service very high need students. Instead of using available spaces to promote smaller class sizes, this crowding can result in a negative climate that will beg for demeaning metal detectors, surveillance cameras and the police interventions. The co-location of the ROADS II Charter School is an invitation for unwarranted competition, disharmony and disruption.
The Bronx Regional campus is extra-ordinary in that it is one of the few Bronx high school buildings that to date has no such prison-like scanning, stop & frisk protocols. Instead has a generally more student friendly and welcoming atmosphere. In fact, it holds no scanning as a building-wide policy!
SA classrooms are welcoming with rich learning and decorated environments (a family school atmosphere rarely seen at the high school level). Make an unannounced visit to SA and a respectful low-volume demeanor of the staff will blow you away. The ROADS II co-location would force the doubling-up of teachers and the dismantling of such a wonderful model school that all students deserve.
If more students must be placed here, the public believes that Satellite Academy should be expanded and this fourth unnecessary competing school, the private ROADS II CHARTER, should not be accepted. Its impact can only be negative for all programs at the site.
betterbronxschools@gmail.com
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